Voucher ruling doesn't stop state money flowing to private schools
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/state/content/state/epaper/2006/01/07/m1a_loophole_0107.html
Palm Beach Post - Palm Beach,FL,USA
Voucher ruling doesn't stop state money flowing to private schools
By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 07, 2006
The Florida Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state's oldest
voucher program was clear that the use of tax dollars to pay private school
tuition is unconstitutional, but it left loopholes that allow other
programs to continue to spend public money at private preschools and
colleges.
Still safe under Thursday's ruling are: the state's new pre-kindergarten
program, which relies heavily on private and religious schools; the grants
that pay for college tuition at private and religious schools; and a
program that uses tax dollars to send disabled children to private schools.
However, the court refused to approve or disapprove a lower court's
rejection of vouchers on the basis that they violate the constitution's
separation of church and state — a strategic move, some say, to avoid
eliminating all religious-based programs that take tax dollars or to allow
for further challenges in the future.
"They left the door open on religion," said Howard Burke, executive
director of the Florida Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. "I
think we all know where that's headed."
Thursday's ruling affects only Opportunity Scholarships, which are given to
students in continually failing schools. But attorneys believe the ruling
could eventually shut down McKay vouchers for disabled students and
corporate tax-credit vouchers for poor children.
Legal arguments against vouchers have focused on two parts of the Florida
Constitution — separation of church and state, and a provision that
requires the state to provide a "uniform, efficient, safe, secure and
high-quality system of free public schools."
The court's decision said taking tax dollars from public schools and giving
them to private schools violates the requirement for a uniform and
high-quality system of free public schools.
That was enough, justices said, to deem vouchers unconstitutional without
going into religion.
It also ensured, for now, the continuation of other popular programs such
as the voter-mandated pre-K classes, which enrolled 79,494 4-year-olds this
year. The pre-K program is specifically mentioned in the 35-page ruling
written by Chief Justice Barbara Pariente.
Because the state's constitution refers only to kindergarten through grade
12 schools, "the legislature is free to provide for pre-kindergarten
education in any manner it desires, consistent with other applicable
constitutional provisions," the ruling says.
The ruling also specifically mentions a decades-old program that allows
parents of disabled students to receive taxpayer-funded tuition to a
private or religious school if there is a lack of special services in their
public school.
More than 1,000 disabled children in Florida receive a private school
education under that program, which was upheld by a 1978 Florida Supreme
Court ruling.
The state's lawyers argued that if vouchers were ruled unconstitutional,
this program also would go down.
But Pariente wrote that the program for disabled students is "structurally
different" than the voucher system.
It fulfills a specific need that has been proven the public school cannot
offer; with the McKay voucher, a child is eligible based solely on whether
he or she is in a special education program and has been in a public school
for one year.
"The voucher programs are designed to divert money not out of necessity but
out of a preference and out of antagonism to the public schools," said
Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union,
which was a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Grants paying for college tuition to private and religious schools also
will remain uninterrupted — again based on the fact that the constitutional
provision pertains only to kindergarten through grade 12 schools.
This year, more than $93 million was approved for the grants, called
Florida Resident Access Grants. That's a 14 percent increase over last year
and nearly five times what private college students received in 1995.
The Supreme Court let stand two lower-court rulings that said vouchers were
unconstitutional based on the language: "No revenue of the state or any
political subdivision or agency shall ever be taken from the public
treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect or religious
denomination."
A Palm Beach Post analysis of schools taking vouchers in 2003 found that
three-quarters of all schools receiving tax dollars under one of the three
programs are religious.
Shaka Mitchell, associate director of the Center for Education Reform, said
Florida's justices purposely sidestepped the religion issue because they
were concerned the constitutional language wouldn't pass the U.S. Supreme
Court.
"I think folks on both sides would rather they just tackle it even though
it may get ugly," Mitchell said.
• Read the court's opinion
http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/pub_info/summaries/briefs/04/04-2323/Filed_01-05-2006_Opinion.pdf
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Posting and reading from alt.politics.usa.constitution OR alt.education
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the U.S. and a couple from overseas as well]
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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